SwapThing and Cerado to Expand Community and Social Networking through New SwapCircles

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Swapping is inherently a trust-based activity, and SwapCircles are based on real world and virtual (online) connections. SwapCircles help increase trust by facilitating swapping within trusted groups. Cerado’s Haystack networking will help manage and maintain those special connections.

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SwapThing, a fun online community for swapping things, and Cerado, a provider of services that enable organizations to build closer relationships with their customers, have aligned to help swappers find other swappers who share common interests through new SwapCircles. The new SwapCircle service will be available this fall via SwapThing.com.

Powered by Cerado’s Haystack™ networking, a SwapCircle is a community of individuals who identify with a particular activity, locality or other commonality. SwapCircles provide a new way to swap goods and services amongst trusted swappers with similar hobbies or interests. SwapCircles are customizable with a group's logo and mission, as well as displaying the items listed by the members under one umbrella, and also provide a private forum for members to talk, swap, and share ideas and stories.

Christopher Carfi, CEO and Co-Founder of Cerado, Inc. observed, “Swaps are not just for items, but also for swapping household and business services. Haystack networking allows SwapCircle members to connect based on affinity, interests, geography, and similarity. Since every community is unique, this allows community members to tailor the community to their individual needs.”

SwapThing CEO and Founder, Jessica Hardwick offered, “Swapping is inherently a trust-based activity, and SwapCircles are based on real world and virtual (online) connections. SwapCircles help increase trust by facilitating swapping within trusted groups. Cerado’s Haystack networking will help manage and maintain those special connections.”

Currently, there are over 50,000 swappers using SwapThing, and over 3,000,000 items and services listed. There is no additional cost to swappers to create or join SwapCircles. Over 100 organizations use Haystack networking.

Based in Cupertino, CA, SwapThing encourages the trade and barter of any combination of items and services between consumers and small businesses, using cash to offset unequal exchanges. SwapThing offers free registration and listing, with transaction fees of $1.00 for each exchange of goods, no matter how many items are in the swap. Unlike competitors, SwapThing is barter-based as opposed to auction-based, allowing completely private, one-on-one negotiations.

The SwapThing search engine matches items offered to items wanted – a unique system of direct exchange between users, and a rating system to build trustworthiness. It also enables the creation and joining of SwapCircles to build strong communities and social networks for traders of like interests. http://www.swapthing.com

About Cerado

Cerado, Inc. uses advanced technology to provide useful, non-intrusive services that enable organizations to communicate more effectively, compete more effectively, and close business more effectively. Cerado works with organizations to build customer-driven communities across a number of highly competitive industries such as high tech, finance, and professional services.

Perhaps most importantly, the Cerado team feels that the emerging areas of social technologies -- blogs, wikis, social networks, and the like -- are going to fundamentally change the way that customers and companies interact in these shared communities, as well as fundamentally change the way employees interact with each other within those organizations.